This is a story about a rare occurrence of bad sportsmanship and is absolutely not exemplary of the usual amazing Vassal experience.

Hi all, I am usually not one for whining (ok, sometimes, when those dice are just hating me ), but I played two Vassal games in a row just now and both games really ended up being pretty weird.

The first game was against a player called 'Coarse' and lasted for only one round, because he 4k-d his Scum Kath in his first move, got stressed and caught in the fire of my Mangler M3A, Emon and Guri. I got a couple of shots of with good results and he immediately left.

Not long after that a player called 'Pleomorphic' appeared (I had a gut feeling that this was just the same guy, but with a different name - we'll never know).

The second game was against this 'Pleomorphic', which went for a couple of rounds, until the moment he had to reveal the dial he had prepared for his Soontir. Out of the corner of my eye I saw an extra dial appearing and dissapearing on his 'hand'-window. Of course I got suspicious and got a hold of the dial he had lying on the map. When he revealed his movement, I dragged the dial to the right and suddenly there were two dials.

I asked what was happening, but before I could even accuse him of cheating, he'd already left the room and quit the game.

I know there were a couple of people who saw this happening, so I am very happy to at least know I am not going crazy. However I am completely baffled and quite annoyed by the Vassal experience I had today. I am totally in love with the game and with Vassal as an option for people who do not live close to other players.

Normally Vassal is a really amazing community of people who try to help each other and play for the fun of the game, so this is definitely an anomaly. Hopefully by posting this, some people will be able to avoid playing against this player/ these players or will be able to notice when cheating is going on.

All right, I just needed to get that of my chest .

Good luck all and fly casual.

That is a real shame. It's sad anyone would cheat at a game that doesn't involve an exchange of money (ie gambling, not condoning cheating but I at least understand the motivation there) I hope you have better experiences in the future as I have never tried vassal. Posts like this though would make me cautious to try it.

These things will happen and you just learn from the experience and move on. I've had people leave matches early but have never noticed the dial cheat before. These are rare and should not discourage anyone from trying Vassal out.

WaaC players exist in every game sadly try not to let them spoil things for you.

I've played tons of pickup games on vassal, and I've only encountered outright cheating once. I appreciate you calling them out here, but definitely don't let that discourage you or anyone else from playing. You'll probably have many more good experiences before you encounter something like this again.

Good idea to keep all your windows open, so you can see these shenanigans in progress, though.

These things will happen and you just learn from the experience and move on. I've had people leave matches early but have never noticed the dial cheat before. These are rare and should not discourage anyone from trying Vassal out.

Agreed! This is definitely something that was the opposite of the experience I normally have on Vassal. And this is in no way a thread to deter people from trying out it's awesomeness. It's more a cautionary tale I guess . I'll put a disclaimer at the top of my original post, to reiterate that.

Take heart in the fact that if somebody really has to cheat playing X-Wing on Vassal, well, they pretty much suck at life and probably don't have anything else going for them.

I would apply to that to people who cheat in general. But for a pickup game on Vassal? That's just truly pathetic.

The main "cheating" I've seen, is people abusing the firing arc and/or target lock views for other reasons then doing a target lock. Sometimes it's innocent, and sometimes it's people bending the rules.

I also had one game awhile back where a player admitted after winning that one round when I thought his ship was just off the asteroid, it was actually on, but he pretended it was off even though he knew it was on. Since said ship did a lot of damage that round, it IS possible it effected the outcome of the game.

WaaC players exist in every game sadly try not to let them spoil things for you.

Can't we just call them "cheaters" instead of using an acronym to lump them in with competitive players?

I think your projecting just a little there WaaC players are not by definition competitive players and WaaC isn't just a case of outright cheating it also covers tactics like rushing a players so they make mistakes or moving a ship without properly using the templates and stuff like that.

We had two players in our group infamous for moving their units too far when playing 40k and that was in casual play.

You can check player's IP address on Vassal. Helps to expose ****** bag trolls.

I think your projecting just a little there WaaC players are not by definition competitive players and WaaC isn't just a case of outright cheating it also covers tactics like rushing a players so they make mistakes or moving a ship without properly using the templates and stuff like that.

We had two players in our group infamous for moving their units too far when playing 40k and that was in casual play.

You'll have to link us your source for that definition, because I got nothing from the OED. A simple Google search did reveal that "Win At All Costs" is the motto of the West London Lacrosse Club; it would seem the British are overly familiar with the premise. Projection indeed.

For some reason, I love hearing stories like this. I wish people wouldn't cheat, and feel bad for those affected by it, so it's not schadenfreude. Maybe it's like trying to figure out a magic trick, or watching a movie about con artists.

The worst part about this sort of behavior in Vassal-based X-Wing is that it can ruin a game that often takes the investment of 90 minutes or more. Almost as bad is the lack of a good way to curtail it. Calling cheaters out on a forum frequented by many of the Vassal players is the best solution we've got, I think.